"Food is a gift from God, but cooks are surely the work of the devil" Oscar Wilde used to say, claiming that countries that can count on a landscape made of plains, hills, coasts, mountains, river, woods and countryside can easily build a wealth of invaluable natural resources, but what gives life to a proper culinary tradition and what creates the history of food and wine is the work, passion, and imagination of man.

What visitors will certainly learn during the Expo Milan 2015 is that the only reason why Italy is home to such an extraordinary variety of flavours, tastes and aromas is that Italians have learnt how to make the best of nature's gifts and to transform them by taking inspiration from nature itself.

In Italy more than anywhere else in the world it is possible to satisfy the hunger for culture and good food at the same time. A good meal may in itself being a cultural experience, offering a whole range of insights into the history, traditions and everyday life of the area in which it is eaten.

As the American best selling Karen Brown Guide points out, "the miracle of Italy is that all these gastronomic and cultural treasures are found together in a magnificent country". There are two sides of Italian cuisine, tradition and innovation. To create a dialogue among them, cookery in recent years has increasingly meant, on the one hand, performing a cultural activity, by creating new versions of traditional dishes and rediscovering the use of local agricultural products, and on the other, caring for our health, by cooking tasty yet simple food.

Today, with the aim of emphasizing the fantastic and indissoluble marriage between the landscape and its extraordinary generosity in terms of wine and other gastronomic delights we are going to start a breath-taking journey around Italian food and wine trails, introducing the beauties of all Italian regions and disclosing the secrets of their cuisine. This will be an exciting adventure, and well worth the (real) experience.

Follow @castaritaHK / Courtesy of the Italian State Tourist Board